The Chicken Ranch Closed Here 50 Years Ago This Summer

The infamous Chicken Ranch was a brothel located just outside the small town of La Grange.

The Chicken Ranch inspired both the musical and the 1982 blockbuster movie “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds.

The Chicken Ranch was the oldest continually operated brothel in the United States. It originally opened in 1844. For 129 years, the ranch remained in operation until its closing in 1973. Up until the closure, the Chicken Ranch was well known and operated openly. Soldiers, Texas A&M students and politicians all visited the Chicken Ranch. In the 1960s, the ranch earned more than a half million dollars a year ($4.7 million today). In 1972, Texas DPS troopers watched the chicken ranch for two days and counted 484 men entering the ranch until the surveillance was called off.

Fayette County Sheriff ‘Big Jim’ Flournoy was known to say, “If the citizens of Fayette County wanted the Chicken Ranch closed they would not continually elect me as their sheriff.”

And elected him they did. Sheriff Flournoy held the position of sheriff of Fayette County for 34 years, first elected in 1946 and held the position up until his retirement in 1980. Sheriff Flournoy started his law enforcement career in 1925 as a deputy sheriff for Wharton County and then a deputy at Kenedy County, followed by a stint as a Texas Ranger and later chief deputy of Fayette County for 13 years.

During his tenure, the sheriff had a private telephone line to the Chicken Ranch. Each time a bank robbery or murder occurred in the county, the sheriff telephoned madam Edna Milton and asked if any of her 16 girls heard talk about that crime, to contact him. Sheriff Flournoy is credited with solving every bank robbery and murder in the county, largely from the information he obtained from the working girls.

On August 1, 1973, Governor Dolph Briscoe called Sheriff Flournoy. The governor told the sheriff he was feeling the political heat over the Chicken Ranch and that it was time for him to close it. The sheriff replied he would take care of it and telephoned Milton to explain to her that he had received a call from the governor and that it was time for her to shut down the Ranch for good, which she did.

In 1973, Marvin Zindler, a Houston television reporter, began investigating the ranch because he claimed the brothel was linked to organized crime. His week-long crime report made national headlines, with the story being printed in both Playboy and Texas Monthly magazine.

The news story did not sit well with Sheriff Flournoy, nor did Zindler’s meddling in his county business. When Zindler returned to La Grange to do a follow-up story of the Chicken Ranch’s closing and the economic impact that it had, the 71-year-old sheriff found Zindler in town.

Sheriff Flournoy pulled Zindler out through the window of his car, ripped off Zindler’s toupee from his head and whooped and yelled as he waved the hair piece around. The sheriff afterwards threw the hair piece down on the ground and stomped on it. Sheriff Flournoy warned Zindler he had better not find Zindler in La Grange again for a thousand years. Zindler returned to Houston and complained the sheriff had fractured three of his ribs during the assault.

Zindler did file a civil suit against Sheriff Flournoy and the sheriff later agreed to an out-of-court settlement. The citizens of Fayette County responded to the suit and support of the sheriff by organizing the T.J. Flournoy Defense Fund. By holding raffles, bake sales, auctions and T-shirt and bumper sticker sales, enough money was raised to pay the suit settlement.

After serving 55 years as a Texas law enforcement officer, Sheriff Flournoy retired in 1980, two years before his death.

The beloved sheriff is buried at the La Grange City Cemetery, where a Texas Ranger marker was recently placed at his grave site.

West Gilbreath is a retired police captain of the University of North Texas Police and author of Death on the Gallows, The Encyclopedia of Legal Hangings in Texas.